It’s not any of the factors you guys mentioned. It’s the fact that you can plug it in and set the timer… there are no variables to consider. I don’t think any LED is proven to provide better growth at this point. Maybe so but I haven’t researched that. I know since I went from only the G4 to T5 there has been a considerable difference.
Over the past decade Reef Wholesale has optimized the art of quickly improving the health and coloration of imported coral in preparation for sale. Prior to using LEDs, RW identified the specific mix of metal halide and T5 bulbs that best achieved these results. Metal halide and T5 bulbs degrade through operation which results in a shift in spectrum and intensity over time (until the bulbs are changed). The LED spectrum and schedules RW targeted were therefor based on the outputs of fresh but “burnt in” T5 or metal halide bulbs.
The details of each schedule are discussed in the next section. Note that the Radion® program and spectrum color mix were tuned based on several factors including par, spectrum, photo period, and the response of coral to the schedule.
This is important to note because using a LED light to match the key elements of a T5 or metal halide light spectrum may result in light output that may not be visually identical. The reason for this is that the individual LED diodes have narrow spectral output in their respective wavelength but combined, the output of a puck of red, green and blue LEDs will appear white. Similarly, the white output of a T5 or metal halide bulb may have spectral peaks at certain wavelengths, but the output delivered across the whole spectrum will also appear white.
“We started at what looked like the general spectral mix of our favorite metal halide and
T5 bulbs then over the course of a year slowly tweaked the schedule and spectrum based on the ongoing coloration of the corals. Having each bed half lit with Radion’s® and half with our favorite metal halide or T5 mix gave us the control or benchmark. For example if a red dragon frag was looking better on the T5 side of the trough, then we might try increasing the blue channel on the Radion LED side by 5% and evaluate again after 10 days. Obviously not super scientific but then our interest is in the result more than the photo- biochemical mechanism at work.“
Prior to using Radion® G3 Pros RW (Reef Wholesale) determined that the best coloration and growth in their SPS corals were achieved using T5 bulbs. Specifically *ATI Blue Plus and *ATI AquaBlue Special in a combination of 80%/20% and specifically in *ATI Powermodules. In the
same time period given the same parameters and frags from the same mother colony, this T5 bulb mix generally outperformed (for most, but not all corals) their original lighting staple, metal halide.
Matching and then improving the performance of the Radion® G3 Pros over the T5 ATI bulbs took RW the better part of a year. Initially a visual match provided a starting point, but given that the eye is a poor tool for evaluating lighting, additional refinement took a combination of PAR measurement and spectral analysis. Although the visual appearance of the light output was different between the T5 bulbs and the Radions®, coral response was similar if not identicalFrom there further adjustment of the spectrum and fortnightly reviews
resulted in a spectrum that outperformed the T5 benchmark.
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Given that information above and because I ran a PowerModule with mostly ATI Blue+ and ATI ABS I finally switched. The main reason was because the spread on the G5 caught up with everybody and surpassed most LED fixtures. At first I thought it was hyped, but after I kept watching the growth and coloration of corals and saw the spread charts, I became a believer.
So for me it made sense to buy cheaper fixtures, 80% less weight, completely programmable, less energy consumption, with superior spread.
That data above was taken with G3’s w/o diffusers.
Just imagine what the G5’s with diffusers would do now in the same study running the AB+ program.